The First Generation
by Kuzosama
Summary: Scattered throughout a small part of Japan are pocket dimensions under the dominion of the monsters that inhabit them. It's a pity I had to find out the hard way. AU.


**Disclaimer: **Does not own.

**.**

A sphere, cleanly divided into two halves by a black band, rotated slowly in my mind's eye. Its lower half was an opaque white, but on top it was a translucent red, and through that dome I could see an indistinct shape and its agitated movements.

_Time never waits._

The sphere shattered.

In the midst of disappearing shards, I was falling rapidly. I took in a breath, and I felt myself slowing down, my feet reorienting themselves downwards.

_It delivers all equally to the same end._

Impossibly, I landed softly on nothing in a sea of inky blackness. I looked around, but could not perceive anything.

_If you would give it form, it will grant you strength. Choose._

Three pinpricks of light blossomed in the darkness, and each one spun and grew into a smaller red and white sphere, no larger than a marble. I approached the one directly in front of me, and reached out. Before I could touch it, thick, leafy vines erupted from its transparent half and wrapped around it, crushing it into nothingness.

_The power of Grass. The assured vitality of self-sustenance. The suffocating embrace of sweet poison. This power is not yet yours to claim._

Two spheres remained to my right. I approached the next one closest to me. As I reached out to it, water gushed out of it and it was suspended in a blue ball of clear blue liquid. Slowly the sphere seemed to dissolve, and then the ball of water bubbled and disappeared.

_The power of Water. The compromising elegance to flow around obstacles. The indomitable persistence to cleave through stone. This power is not yet yours to claim._

Only one left. I had a feeling I knew what was going to happen. Still I reached out to it, and brilliant orange flames erupted from under my fingers, momentarily flashing white just before it went out. Within a split second, ash was falling into the invisible.

_The power of Fire. The insatiable hunger to consume and grow. The unyielding ferocity to destroy all that stands in your way. This power is not yet yours to claim._

In its place another pinprick of light appeared, growing into a sphere much like the very first one that had shattered, about the size of a baseball. Everything in me beckoned for me to reach out and take hold of it, certain that this one was surely mine.

I flexed my fingers and started to lift my hand, but the sound of bells echoed in the darkness.

Everything faded away.

The darkness receded, and I blinked awake from the odd dream to the sight of the landscape in the windows being replaced by smooth concrete walls and pillars, gradually slowing down. It was barely dawn, and the train was empty, the sky outside dark.

"The next station is the last stop for this service. Tokiwa Station. Please mind the platform gap."

Confused frustration and a disjointed sense of loss gnawed at my throat. I had lost something important. I could feel it.

The train doors slid open. I stood up and slung my bag onto my shoulder.

**The First Generation**

My name is Ashley, but no one calls me that. Due to a genetic defect, I have partial albinism, and although my hair is as dark as both my parents' had been, when the light happens to hit my eyes a certain way, my irises seem red as freshly spilt blood.

That's why everyone calls me Red.

**Chapter I  
**_Shattering_

I hadn't been back to this side of Japan since I was ten. That had been six, maybe seven years ago. Still, amidst the new buildings that stood where old ones used to, I recognised the same roads, and to the north the same forest we used to go bug-catching in. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, and the roads still deserted.

This early, it was lonely enough to seem right out of my memories.

Hands in my pockets, I walked south.

This was where I would go to school for the next two years, but I would stay at the next suburb just around a fifteen minute's cycle downhill. The old Professor for whom my mom used to intern with had called in a favour, and as my mom was in no state to answer it, I was the one sent here to honour an old debt. Meanwhile, he would pay my scholarship, provide food and lodging, even give me a small salary.

I passed between the city gates, and continued out past it. There were no more buildings on the road. It was just plain winding asphalt, downhill to a small, quiet town, and beyond that, the open sea.

Now, I just had to find out what it was that an esteemed Professor like the great Oak could want that he needed my mom, and barring that, me.

**.**

Twenty minutes down the road, the world shattered around me.

**.**

SMASH

The world shattered around me, breaking like glass to reveal the same image behind the façade, only not. I gaped upwards. Dark clouds filled the sky to every corner, bolts jumping from one to the other in unceasing jagged blue forks. This felt really familiar. Perhaps another dream?

Yellow darted at the corner of my vision, and I whirled around to face it, but it was gone.

My heart pounded in my chest; my fingers felt sweaty against my palms.

Another flicker, yellow and brown, and there it was. An odd creature perched within the trees, like a discoloured possum, tree rabbit, giant hamster? I knew not, but it was looking at me.

Slowly it raised its tail to point at the sky, an image of a thunderbolt, and some distant part of me wanted to giggle as I thought of a certain British wizard. Mostly I just wanted to run from its malicious gaze.

My skin tingled, all the hairs rising with the charge that was starting to fill the air.

No way.

_If you would give it form, it will grant you strength._

Blue darts of electricity surged from the ground in a circle around it, slowly being drawn into its body as it began to spark and glow an unearthly white. Like a thousand chirping birds, the electricity's scream closed in around me.

Tell me this wasn't happening.

_Choose._

It leapt, trailing blue fire. My vision tunnelled.

I had to do something. I had to make a choice.

Anything but this death that promised to be painful.

Even the monster before me.

_You._

Blinding pain.

**.**

"Welcome to my laboratory."

A spotlight glared upon an empty steel table. In the shadows, rows upon rows of shelves extended into the distance. A man walked into the light. Immediately jumped out at me his dark apron and rubber gloves.

"My name is Dexter. I am delighted to make your acquaintance."

Creepy man. I supposed he could have been handsome, in any other situation, looking like your typical gaijin from TV. Light hair parted to the side, intense green eyes. A dark mole low on one cheek, perfect teeth. He was smiling at me. I did not want to be here.

"Allow me to explain. This place exists between dream and reality. Mind and matter."

Dexter walked slowly around the table, his pace even and measured, adjusting his gloves. I stilled. More weird shit was about to ensue.

"You've seen a glimpse of what awaits you in the next year. If you are to survive, you'll need our services."

"...'our' services?"

His smile widened. I should've kept my mouth shut.

"Ah, I have neglected to mention my assistants. Only one of them is present at the moment, but let me introduce you."

A woman stepped into the light. A white apron was set over a pink nurse's outfit, and a nurse's cap sat neatly on a head of pink hair, tied low into two loops like weird pigtails. Seriously? The woman bowed at me, a polite smile on her face. She was a picture of Japanese subservience.

"This is Joy. She is a resident of this place, much like myself."

I caught the bad pun, but did not laugh. Firmly I kept my lips sealed, refusing to say a word. Dexter just continued as if we hadn't taken that tangent.

Lifting a hand, red and white spun into existence in his grip. I knew it.

"Now, this was meant to be yours, but another with a unique power much like yours has claimed it in your absence."

A stab of possessiveness. I struggled to remain quiet even as my eyes immediately focused on the sphere in his hand.

"Perhaps one day you could reclaim it, but for now... At least you are not completely helpless."

He released it, and my gaze followed the ball's trajectory until it disappeared halfway to the ground. My eyes snapped back up to Dexter's face.

"We shall guide you through the details another time, when you shall come here of your own accord."

He waved his hand, and a tiny weight settled on my shirt collar. Still I dared not take my eyes off him.

"Until we meet again."

**.**

The pain hit me again like a bag of bricks.

"Oh, you're awake!" The door was half-open, the Professor just about to step in.

"Professor." I winced, and struggled to sit up on the bed. How did I get here? I looked up where there was a clock on the wall. It was a little past six. Was it already evening? Was it even still the same day?

"Ash," he said, using his preferred nickname for me. Closing the door behind him, he approached the bedside and sat down on the chair that was there. "How do you feel?"

"I... Like I just got run over by a train." I said, holding my head. "What happened?"

"I found you collapsed halfway down the road from Tokiwa this morning, Ash." He said, looking at me with an odd quality in his eyes. "I carried you back."

"Yeah... Something attacked me. It..." I trailed off.

The Professor grew quiet for a bit, as if deep in thought. Then he made a small nod, shifted in his seat, and suddenly Samuel Oak disappeared and truly it was The Professor sitting before me. His countenance grew serious, capturing me in his piercing gaze.

I started for a bit as it hit me.

"It's the reason you need Mom, isn't it?"

"Indeed, it is."

"Tell me."

He nodded. "Let me start from the beginning."

He breathed in. He paused a little.

He leaned forwards, grim.

Then.

"When I was young," he started. "I spent my youth travelling with my father."

**.**

When I was young, I spent my youth travelling with my father. Like I am now, he was a metaphysical biologist on the frontlines of that era's scientific breakthroughs. For a long time, his research and experimentation took us around the world.

Once, his studies took us into a jungle on the northern coast of South America. It was a place called Guyana, and we settled there for about a year. He had hired a couple of the young men and women there as assistants, including the man who would become your grandfather, and the only other survivor of the disaster that his vile experimentation caused.

During that time, our camp was situated just a few hundred paces from the ruins of an ancient civilisation, guarded by a dowt of strange wildcats. My father came across these creatures and killed them all, including a pregnant molly. Once he had slain them, he extracted the unborn foetus out of the molly's womb, and carried it back to camp.

It was a miserable thing, somehow still alive and shivering, wrapped up in my father's bloodstained cloak. It mewled softly in his arms, and we called it Mew.

I remember it resembled the Manchurian jerboa with its long tail, only more embryonic in shape, but perhaps that was because it was even yet a kitten. I never found out what the mature of its species looked like. When my father took me to retrieve their carcasses that afternoon, they had disappeared without a trace, along with the ruins that they had been guarding.

Driven mad by this event, my father turned to even more despicable acts. He extracted the creature's DNA and then kept it under cryogenic stasis. After that, his assistants started to disappear, one by one.

For a while I thought it was retribution from the creatures that he had cruelly slain. I later found out that it was through his own hand that they were experimented on and, when the results did not please him, disposed.

Eventually, he managed to splice a section of Mew's DNA into one man's – your grandfather. My father kept him in captivity, and everything proceeded that way for some time, until the rest of the villagers started to turn.

Men, women and children in the nearby village were becoming increasingly aggressive, attacking each other at the slightest provocation. Some of them were affecting the world around them subconsciously, and slowly it became obvious that all of them were losing their human bodies. Slowly, they became increasingly fox-like in appearance.

I only discovered what was happening when I unwittingly went into the village to trade for food supplies, and was attacked by the frenzied half-men. I barely fled with my life, leaving a village half in flames, and confronted my father.

When I found him, he was packing. Our necessities were already in our bags, and he held in one hand a reinforced steel briefcase. I did not have to guess to know what it contained.

We had to leave, he said. He had to continue his research elsewhere.

I should fetch the last of my stuff, he said. We did not have long.

So I went into the camp, numb, and found his captive, bound and gagged though he had been kept unconscious from the beginning. A multitude of tubes fed into his body. On one of the tables was a firearm – my father's Walther PPK.

With trembling hands I picked it up, and slid the magazine out. It was loaded. I clicked it back in, blood draining out of my face. Conviction filled me.

Only two survivors made it out of that hellhole. My hands trembled, but my aim was sure.

**.**

"I ended up in the Americas somewhere, and I never heard from your grandfather again until I had made a name for myself and your mother found me. By that time, your grandfather had already passed on, but he felt he owed me a debt for saving his life; he sent your mother to give me his thanks."

"I had always told your mother that it didn't matter – that it was my father's fault anyway. I never thought I would need to call in this favour, but something has happened."

Over the past few minutes, I had begun to connect the dots, though I was still having trouble drawing a clear picture. Even so, as he wound down I had thought the story over, the explanations forthcoming.

The Professor did not relax. Samuel Oak did not return. Now he seemed to tense up even more.

My mind churned. I swallowed hard.

For the first time, the Professor's gaze drifted. It wandered to the single window in the room, hidden behind a drape of curtains.

"I have a friend who lives in Tokiwa who had recently returned from America," he said.

What. My gut sank at the possibilities. What did that mean? I shifted under the blankets, filling the desperate silence with rustling cloth. The Professor turned back to me.

"The city was empty when you walked through it, was it not?"


End file.
